Barack Obama and George W. Bush’s bromance continues with quip over ‘behaving’ during Trump’s inauguration
Barack Obama and George W. Bush’s bromance continued Monday ahead of President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
As the two former presidents prepared to walk into the Capitol Rotunda for the swearing-in ceremony an aide can be heard asking W.: ‘Are you going to behave?’
Obama, walking up behind George and Laura Bush, volunteered an answer.
‘Nope,’ the Democrat said.
The playful exchange happened after Bush gave Obama’s tummy a playful tap when he arrived at President Jimmy Carter’s funeral earlier this month.
Bush ignored the Trumps to greet Obama.
He later was seen shaking Donald Trump’s hand.
Obama won the White House in 2008 after running against the two-term Bush’s policies, including his decision to invade Iraq.
Former President George W. Bush (left) gives a wink alongside former first lady Laura Bush (right) in the Capitol Rotunda for President Donald Trump’s swearing-in ceremony
But Bush 43 never appeared to harbor a grudge.
He attended Obama’s 2009 inauguration and appeared chummy with Barack and Michelle Obama over the years.
While a Republican like Trump, Bush has been more critical of Trump than Obama.
On the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks in 2021, nine months after the January 6 Capitol attack, Bush warned about the threats of domestic terrorism.
Trump, in turn, said that Bush had ‘a failed and uninspiring presidency’ and shouldn’t be ‘lecturing’ the public.
Prior to that, Trump humiliated Bush’s brother Jeb on the 2016 campaign trail, mocking the former Florida governor for being ‘low energy’ – a dig that stuck.
Before Trump fully entered politics he pushed the so-called ‘birther’ conspiracy theory about Obama – that the country’s first black president was born in Kenya, where Obama’s father was from, and not Hawaii, where the Democratic president was born.
The White House eventually released Obama’s long-form birth certificate to put the issue to bed.
Former President George W. Bush (left), former first lady Laura Bush (center) and former President Barack Obama (right)
Obama then humiliated Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, considered one of the reasons Trump mounted his own campaign in 2016.
At the Carter funeral, however, Trump and Obama were spotted engaging in an animated conversation – with Obama even laughing at something Trump said.
Former first lady Michelle Obama skipped both Carter’s funeral and didn’t appear at inauguration on Monday.
